As the captain of a schooner catering to the elite on the Caribbean Seas, Sebastian Stark does his
best to avoid any human encounters. Interacting with people isn’t his thing, and he prefers the
company of a bottle of vodka, a shot glass, and maybe a whore. There’s no doubt he’s hiding
from a checkered past, but he does well keeping everything to himself…
…until the night his schooner capsizes, and he’s stuck on a life raft with one of the passengers.
Raine’s young, she’s cute, and Bastian would probably be into her if he wasn’t suffering from
alcohol withdrawal. As the days pass, DTs, starvation, and dehydration become the norm. Even
the most closed person starts to open up when he thinks he’s going to die, but when she realizes
their traumatic pasts are connected, it’s no longer the elements that have Bastian concerned.
He has no idea how he’s going to Survive Raine.
***
Bastian isn’t the most pleasant guy Raine could have ended up with in the middle of the ocean with no chance of rescue, but he has an uncanny knack for survival. As she digs through the walls surrounding the stubborn and challenging man, she finds something surprisingly different buried inside…
…and he can answer the question she’s asked for years.
As she learns more about what has brought him to this fate, Raine is determined to drag this self-destructive man back from the edge of the wave. Isolation is her only chance to tear the man out from inside of the animal, but this one has been abused for a long time.
She also has to live long enough to get through to him.

Excerpt

“What’s your problem?” I snapped again. I hadn’t really meant to, I was just tense and pissy.

The smoke was helping, but what I really wanted was a drink. I didn’t suppose anyone packed any of those little tiny airplane-sized booze bottles in the survival kits.

“I…um…” she stumbled over her words and looked away. Even under her darkened skin, I could see red creeping into her cheeks.

“What?” I was annoyed now. If she was going to complain about my smoking, I was going to lose it.

“I…have to go to the bathroom.”

I laughed. I took one last long drag, getting it all the way up to the filter before I tossed the butt out onto the waves.

“Then fucking go!”

“Where?”

“Didn’t you notice the en suite bath?” I laughed again, and then took a smidgen of pity on her. “Over the side, where do you think?”

“Well…how?”

All right, she did have a point there. Or rather, she didn’t have a point. Or a pointer. I had to laugh again at my internal joke.

“Just…I don’t know…hang your ass out over the edge. Or get in the water.

Whatever.”

“I’d have to take off my suit.”

“So?”

She blushed again.

“What? You want me to hang out in the next room for a few minutes? I promise I won’t gawk at you.”

She didn’t move. Well, actually, she was still fidgeting around; she just didn’t make a move to actually solve her dilemma. If she kept this up, she was going to pee in the fucking raft.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already checked you out front and back, had my mouth on yours and my hand on your tit, so it’s not like…”

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. I realized how what I had said sounded, considering she had been unconscious the entire time. I shook my head.

“I didn’t mean…ah, fuck.” I grabbed my shirt and flopped down on my back, covering my whole face up with the garment. I lay there for a moment but didn’t hear her moving at all, so I yelled at her again. “Get on with it!”

She moved. I could hear her shuffle over to the front of the raft and then move around in one place, presumably taking off her shorts and her bathing suit.

“If you are going to get in the water, put the life preserver around your waist first and hold on to the fucking ladder. I don’t want to have to dive in after your ass again.”

“Okay,” she said. “Um…where is it?”

“Right outside the opening – on the left.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Whatever.”

I listened to her move around a bit more and then felt her move closer to the opening and off to the side. There was a soft splash, and a minute later I heard her pulling herself back up onto the raft.

“There’s something similar to a towel over there,” I said – flinging my arm out in the direction of the back of the raft and waving my hand around. “Make sure you dry off the floor, too.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Whatever.”

I listened to her move around some more, getting pretty fed up with just lying there, baking, with my fucking shirt over my head.

“Are you done yet?”

“Almost,” she said quietly. Her voice still sounded scratchy. “Okay, I’m done.”

I grabbed the shirt off my face and sat up, looking over at her. She was adjusting the straps on her suit and still blushing.

“Do you know why my…um…throat hurts?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t elaborate. After a minute she finally asked.

“Why does my throat hurt?”

“Because you inhaled a shitload of salt water,” I stated. “It fucks up your throat and your vocal cords. Give it a day; it’ll be better.”

“Thank you,” she said, again.

“Whatever,” I replied, again.

I shoved my hand down into the sealed up container for rations and pulled out a carb bar. I tore it in half and threw one of the pieces at her.

“Eat it,” I instructed. “You can have the other half in six hours.”

“Six hours?” she repeated.

“Are you a fucking recorder? Yes, six hours.”

I knew I was being a bastard, but my brain was working overtime trying to figure out what our best course of action might be. Having her here made it ten times more difficult. If it was just me, I was pretty sure I would be fine. There was plenty of food and water for just me. I could fish, I could take care of myself, and I could stay alive under pretty extreme circumstances.

Having her here with me just…complicated everything.

About the Author

Shay Savage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, two children, and a variety of household pets. She is an accomplished public speaker, and holds the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster from Toastmasters International. When not writing, she enjoys science fiction movies, and loves soccer in any and all forms. During the fall, she coaches her daughter’s soccer team. Though she currently works in the technology field, her school background is in psychology, and she brings a lot of that knowledge into the characters within her stories.

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